That said, just the fact that the RIAA insists used MP3 sales are illegal proves how the RIAA is being knowingly dishonest in comparing MP3 downloads to "stealing a CD." After all, it's perfectly legal to sell a used CD. However, if the RIAA is claiming that it's not legal to sell a used MP3, then it's admitting that digital files and physical products are different. Thus, it seems like a pretty weak argument to pretend that the rules of the physical world only apply when it helps the RIAA and the major record labels, but absolutely do not apply when it leads to consumer surplus.

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What does that have to do with the price of tea in china?

I mean really. Wether or not they are worried about illegal copies has no bearing on the conversation. Nobody gets to say that you are not allowed to sell your used bike just because someone else might try to sell a bike they stole.

The RIAA goes on and on about how digital goods aren't any different than physical goods but, as this proves, they really only want the rules to apply if they can twist them to benefit the RIAA.

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Silly Trolls comments are for adults

Mike's point wasn't that the resale of MP3s was not without logic and transaction hurdles (i.e. selling "copies" of a digital file). His point was, you can't have it both ways RIAA. If I am "stealing" by downloading you MP3, and it is "no different than stealing a CD" Then an MP3 = CD. And if that's the case, then I am free to do resell it as I would a CD.

If on the other hand they are saying you can't resell an MP3 because it is under license etc, well then it is not = to a CD and don't go around equating the two for tougher IP law propaganda.

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Needless to say, you left out the part that they are worried about illegal copies being sold.

The point of the article was to point out the RIAA's hypocrisy. When it's to their advantage they claim that digital files are no different than physical products. That every download equates to a lost sale. That downloading a song is the same as stealing a CD.

When anyone else treats digital files the same as physical items, to the detriment of the RIAA, they fall all over themselves claiming that the two are completely different. They blatantly contradict themselves whenever it suits their purpose.

Re: Silly Trolls comments are for adults

His point was, you can't have it both ways RIAA. If I am "stealing" by downloading you MP3, and it is "no different than stealing a CD" Then an MP3 = CD. And if that's the case, then I am free to do resell it as I would a CD.

If on the other hand they are saying you can't resell an MP3 because it is under license etc, well then it is not = to a CD and don't go around equating the two for tougher IP law propaganda.

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It is 'watermarked' of a kind using tags, SHA (Hashcodes), and other methods that I will not go into here.

If people purchased an mp3 legally their will be evidence of that purchase somewhere, and that is all the probity that is required. Same as if you sell any other goods that you have purchased.

The publishers might try to say that you are not allowed to resell because all they have given you is a license to play the mp3, but that is for a court, and more importantly the market itself, to decide.

If it is then found unlawful, it leads to all sorts of interesting problems, with the main one being reselling of phones/ipods having legally purchased mp3 files (and mp4 too) on them at time of resale.

Re: Silly Trolls comments are for adults

There is one issue though: When it comes to MP3s, how does anyone know that you gave up all copies and all rights when you resell it? It is more than likely that the MP3 you are "selling" is in fact a copy, and that somewhere, you have retained a copy, intentionally or not.

Without some sort of system that determines that yes, you have shed all copies (including backups), it is impossible to tell what you have done.

Basically, the personal buying the MP3 copy would be buying pirated goods, and you would be distributing pirated goods (and the middle man company would be as well).

I know the next argument too: If you buy the CD and turn it into MP3s, and then sell the CD, you kept the MP3s, so it's the same thing, right? Nope. See, the guy who buys the CD gets the legal product. The copies you made under fair use are suddenly the illegal copies (because you no longer have fair use of the product). So the sale is legal, the company helping you resell it is legal, and by selling it, you made your own copies illegal, so it's your own problem.

maybe there should be a clearing house where the riaa can buy the used mp3s back at a fair price, im done listening to it so if you dont want me to resell it then you can purchase it back at 98 cents as its no worse for wear and good as new.

Re: Slightly used MP3

ReDigi - Is it Legal? Yes

Consumers’ rights in the digital music market: ReDigi is launching a “Recycled Digital Media” or used music marketplace (ReDigi.com) where owners of digital music can sell and purchase digital music files. We have done extensive research and have spent many hours with well respected law firms in Boston, NYC and LA. We strongly believe that this marketplace will provide and protect the rights of consumers as they were provided for under US copyright act and the first sale doctrine. Just because things have gone digital doesn’t mean that people have given up their hard fought for rights, each individual has the right to sell their legally purchased digital goods. The ReDigi marketplace is NOT about file sharing, it is a method of facilitating the legal transfer of music between two parties. The ReDigi approach is novel, it verifies that the track was properly acquired, manages items selected for sale within the sellers music libraries to prevent multiple copies (protecting the seller from copyright infringement), and facilitates an even greater level of copyright protection than the previous CD market. Even just a few years ago technology did not support a readily viable solution. ReDigi has made it a reality for the millions of music users and the billions of legally downloaded tracks that exist in the world today.

ReDigi supports the music industry. We love them and need them! Music is good for the soul – what would life be like without it. The music industry has been severely damaged, as theft and file-sharing has become the norm. ReDigi provides a low cost alternative marketplace, where the Labels, Artists, and Consumers can share in the profits. ReDigi allows consumers to do what they have been legally entitled to do for over 100 years, resell music under the first sale doctrine. ReDigi supports the sale of new digital music from legal sites; the more consumers legally purchase the greater the available market for used music.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Silly Trolls comments are for adults

Re: Re: Silly Trolls comments are for adults

Wouldn't your CD explanation apply just fine to MP3s?

If you own one legal license to an MP3, and then you sell a copy of the file and that legal license to another, they now own it. If you retain a copy of the MP3 yourself, then the copy which you previously owned a license to becomes the illegal copy. So the sale is legal, the company helping you resell it is legal, and by retaining a copy yourself, you made your copy illegal, so it's your own problem.

Both situations place the responsibility on the original legal owner of the music, and both situations essentially use the honour system, unless the seller's computer is later inspected somehow.

Re: ReDigi - Is it Legal? Yes

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Silly Trolls comments are for adults

How do you know if someone already owns the album or not as well as downloaded? Maybe their CD drive is on the fritz and they downloaded it to computer because they are broke after buying discs for $20 each to get that one song per album?

Re: Re: ReDigi - Is it Legal? Yes

Re: Re: Re: Silly Trolls comments are for adults

No, you have to slow down and think for a second.

When you sell an MP3, you are always selling a copy. No matter what you do, you can't sell the original. If you made backups, you have copies of that as well. If you bought it through a system that provides "recovery", you still have access to it. So what you are selling is only a copy, never the original. So what happens is that you are selling a pirated copy (because it is never the original), and you have no simple way to clearly give up all of your rights to the product. Simply, once you download it, there is no real way to ever prove you that you sold your original copy.

With a CD, you have the "proof". The buyer gets something that is a solid indicator, the "object". It is the object that infers all the rights.

All digital requires an honor system that most people are more than willing to break. CDs have no honor, you own it or you don't.

Now, while I hate to say this, this is a perfect example where a universal DRM would resolve the issue, removing the "honor system" and replacing it with actual sellable, trackable rights. But since everyone pisses all over any sort of DRM when it comes up, you are left in a legal minefield.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Silly Trolls comments are for adults

I am thinking just fine, thank you very much. And I still completely disagree.

If it is possible to have legal mp3s, then you have to accept that there is a license of ownership which is singular. Why can that license not be transferrable? Yes, you are always selling a copy of an mp3 - but if you are also officially selling and transferring the license, then it is your copy that becomes infringing if you decide to keep it. The license becomes the "proof", and as with the case of a physical CD, it is trivial for you to retain a copy but you become guilty infringement if you do so.

This does not require any sort of DRM. Simply a record of your original purchase of the mp3 and the associated license, and a record of your transfer of that license.

Music business deserves what it gets

Until its easier for me to download music at a reasonable cost, going to a torrent site and downloading will remain the #1 option. Much of the music I've already bought on album, tape, CD. Now you want me to pay for it again? Blow me.

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Um, the same way they prove how they purchased anything else. What other way is there?

More to the point, having both sold stuff and given stuff to charity shops - prams, laserdiscs, CDs, DVDs, clothes, shoes, books, kettles etc etc.... - I can't recall even once having been asked to prove I owned any of it before either selling or giving it away.

Which comes back to the point; either the MP3 is the same as anything physical, in which case you can do pretty much what you like with it, including sell it on. Or it's not the same, in which case given it's zero-cost a copy of a copy of a copy when it was legally "bought" stop pretending it's been "stolen" and anything's been "lost" and talk about what copyright infringement really means.

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Re: Re: Re: Re: Solved by Bitcoin

You are absolutely correct. Bitcoin has a truly remarkable technology which created a fully anonymous, peer-to-peer digital currency implemented in open-source.

It could easily be modified to carry any digital payload. The payload would be encrypted by the seller using the buyer's public key. Normally upon receipt, the buyer would use the associated private key to decrypt the digital asset.

The harder part is to keep the asset secure but still let the buyer use it. For audio, a player would have to incorporate the decryption algorithm and played the audio directly to the hardware.

I think the digital stream could be intersected and directed to a hard disk. To finally make the whole path secure, as is done with HDMI, the decryption would have to be done in the hardware.

Still, the audio could be recorded ... "the analog hole".

Non-the-less, the original encrypted block could be resold with proof of transfer signatures using public-key cryptology.

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No, the burden is on the one doing the accusing to prove that their accusations are true.

You'd think so that being the basis of both US and UK law as I understand it, but 3 strikes laws rather suggest otherwise - unless I'm missing something there's no burden of proof there at all before punitive action is taken. Which leads me to ask "What the hell is so special about copyright that it gets to violate a basic precept of law?"

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Silly Trolls comments are for adults

there is no "original" mp3. The "original" mp3 is not at issue. What is at issue is legal, licensed ownership to the mp3 - if that is being transferred as some sort of legal document, then that acts as proof, and everything else falls to the honour system (just like it does with a CD)

The only way I see this working...

The only way I could see this working is by requiring sellers to scan and upload a copy of the original receipt for the mp3 file purchase.

Say for example that you buy mp3 files from Amazon... you get receipts or invoices.

Print the invoice, black out the personal information with a marker, scan it or make a picture with a camera, upload it along with the mp3 file to ReDigi. Keep a copy of the receipt in a folder just in case RIAA wants to see your proof of purchase.

When sold, ReDigi issues new receipt/invoice to the buyer and the cycle repeats.

ReDigi could go further by requiring sellers to activate their accounts by using a confirmation code sent through snail mail to their address.

Just like with any other service/business (like Ebay for example), the business should make reasonable steps to make sure counterfeit items or fake items are not sold but otherwise it's not their jobs to make sure each mp3 file ("item") is legally bought.

But there's other cases like "rip the cd, convert tracks to mp3, destroy the cd, sell individual tracks on redigi" or "kid receives a mp3 player with 100 mp3 files included by store as a sales gimmick or promotion, he turns around and sells the mp3 files on ReDigi" ... in both of these cases you don't have receipts.

Why is Redigi so expensive?!

I've seen a few of these companies come up, but the EASIEST/CHEAPEST is probably musedic.com (all songs are $.09/MP3), since it only requires a legally binding signed agreement that you both a) legally purchased the MP3s and b) have removed all copies other than the one which was uploaded. Another site that I attempted to use was mp3caprice.com, but I'm not sure how they're getting away MP3s for $.12/each... no explanation on the site, either.

But I don't find sites like Redigi or Musedic to be completely worthless. I can fill out my media library for pennies on the dollar, and if I don't have pennies, I can trade in songs I'm no longer interested in.